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Good Vegetable Mullagatawny

A Caribbean vegetable stew with curry powder, onions, marrow, cucumbers, apples, and butter, simmered until a thick pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Good Vegetable Mullagatawny

makes 2 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a large stewpan or thick iron saucepan until just browning.

  2. Add the sliced onions, vegetable marrow, cucumbers, and acid apples.

  3. Stir and cook over gentle heat until tender.

  4. Mix in the curry powder and salt.

  5. Stew for an additional 20 to 30 minutes.

  6. Gradually add enough boiling water to cover the vegetables.

  7. Cook until reduced to a pulp.

Strain and finish

  1. Press the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean stewpan.

  2. Add enough liquid to make 2 quarts.

  3. Adjust seasoning with salt, cayenne, or acid as needed.

  4. If butter appears on the surface, skim it off.

  5. Stir in arrowroot to absorb it.

  6. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cucumber + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns gently at the start, adding a rich, nutty flavour and fat to the base.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, building the body of the soup.
Vegetable marrow
Breaks down to a pulp, giving the soup its bulk and smooth texture.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a mild, fresh flavour that softens as they cook.
Acid apples
Provide tartness that balances the curry powder and sweetness of the vegetables.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice and aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Cook until reduced to a pulp. The vegetables must break down fully so the sieved soup is smooth; under-cooked pieces will not pass through the sieve and leave a grainy texture.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, cucumber, apple, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, cucumber, apple, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More mullagatawny recipes

Soup 27Vegetable 6

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